Last week we did a couple of reports on the Senate's unanimous passage of a rightwing Republican's amendment that would strip millions of Palestinian refugees of their refugee status. Well neocon Daniel Pipes says he (and Steve Rosen formerly of AIPAC) helped drive Congress:
The fetid, dark heart of the Arab war on Israel, I have long argued, lies not in disputes over Jerusalem, checkpoints, or "settlements." Rather, it concerns the so-called Palestine refugees....
I am proud to report that, in part based on the work carried out by the Middle East Forum's Steven J. Rosen and myself over the past year, the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee on May 24 unanimously passed a limited but potentially momentous amendment to the $52.1 billion fiscal 2013 State Department and foreign operations appropriations bill.
The amendment, proposed by Mark Kirk (Republican of Illinois) requires the State Department to inform Congress about the use of the annual $240 million of direct American taxpayer funds donated to Palestine refugees via UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency]. ...Despite its limited nature, Kirk calls the reporting requirement a "watershed." Indeed, it inspired what a senior Senate GOP aide called "enormous opposition" from the Jordanian government and UNRWA itself, bringing on what Foreign Policy magazine's Josh Rogin called a raging battle.
Thanks, night-web-crawler Annie Robbins.
Thanks Annie and Phil. Amazing to think that Rosen a top official for Aipac caught red handed illegaly and knowingly accessing highly classified US intelligence about Iran etc. passing the info to Israeli officials undermining U.S. national security continues to have so much power…
Amazing to watch and listen to the MSM host report about how many Syrians have been killed by the Assad government and stream gruesome images of the dead in and these same outlets have never ever displayed images of how many children or innocent people killed, injured displaced as a direct consequence of our immoral and illegal invasion of Iraq. You know “massacres”
Never have these same MSM outlets displayed images of the thousands killed in Gaza during Israel’s “massacres” Obama’s drones killing thousands of innocents.
Guess the U.S. and Israel etc do not like competition in the “massacre” arena.
Ron Paul has a sign on his desk which says “Don’t steal. The government hates competition”.
He should update that to say “don’t kill” as well.
man. 1 minute indicted for espionage (rosen) next minute an influential lobbyist.
Time to get zionist money out of Washington. It’s time to open the flood gates and let the well-needed enema of the capital begin! (To mix metaphors a little…)
“Time to get zionist money out of Washington”…Woody
Well, I think you’re gonna need some extrajudicial assassinations or citizens arrest to do that.
Hey Phil check this out over at Antiwar.com. Mondoweiss mentioned
Now I am not anti Buchanan. He voiced strong opposition to the invasion of Iraq. Has brought up the influence of the I lobby and Israel’s disproportionate and destructive influence on US foreign policy for years. Have I disagreed with him on either issues yes. But he is rock solid on other issues.
How Bill Kristol Purged the Arabists
by Patrick J. Buchanan, May 29, 2012
Print This | Share This After taping John Stossel’s show on May 15 in New York, the Mrs. and I took the 10 a.m. Acela back to Washington. Once we had boarded the train, who should come waddling up the aisle but Bill Kristol.
The Weekly Standard editor seemed cheerful, and we chatted about the surge in Mitt Romney’s popularity and prospects.
I did not ask what he had been doing in New York, but thanks to the website Mondoweiss, I found out. Kristol was there for a May 15 “debate” with Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street, the pro-Israel organization, at B’nai Jeshurun synagogue on the Upper West Side.
After listening to Kristol, writes Phil Weiss, “I am still reeling.”
“Kristol was treated like royalty and came off as … a Republican Party warlord,” bragging “about how all the hostile elements to Israel inside the Republican Party were purged over the last 30 years — [and] no one [now] dared to question the power of the Israeli lobby.”
“The big story in the Republican Party over the last 30 years, and I’m very happy about this,” said Kristol, is the “eclipsing” of the George H.W. Bush-James Baker-Brent Scowcroft realists, “an Arabist old-fashioned Republican Party … very concerned about relations with Arab states that were not friendly with Israel….”
That Bush crowd is yesterday, said Kristol. And not only had the “Arabists” like President Bush been shoved aside by the neocons, the “Pat Buchanan/Ron Paul type” of Republican has been purged.
“At B’nai Jeshurun,” writes Weiss, “Kristol admitted to playing a role in expelling members of the Republican Party he does not agree with.” These are Republicans you had to “repudiate,” said Kristol, people “of whom I disapprove so much that I won’t appear with them.”
“I’ve encouraged that they be expelled or not welcomed into the Republican Party. I’d be happy if Ron Paul left. I was very happy when Pat Buchanan was allowed — really encouraged … by George Bush … to go off and run as a third-party candidate.”
Kristol’s point: Refuse to toe the neocon line on Israel, and you have no future in the Republican Party.
Ben-Ami seemed equally exultant: “We’ve won the war; we won the war,” he told the audience. Ninety-nine percent of Congress now votes almost 100% pro-Israel.
But Ben-Ami appeared nervous about how this unanimity in the Congress behind Israel had been achieved:
I very seriously and absolutely do believe that a significant percentage of American members of the House of Representatives and the Senate are intimidated on this issue (of Israel). … They worry about the ramifications of speaking out. … They are worried about the attacks that they will receive.
Ben-Ami said the 50 members who have criticized Israel are courageous, but “another 200 are scared to do it.” Haaretz.com reports Ben Ami as saying congressmen “live in fear” of the Israeli lobby.
Kristol laughed at this and dared Ben-Ami to name them.
When Ben-Ami brought up the destruction of Palestinian rights on the West Bank and said Hillary Clinton repeatedly raises this issue with Israel, writes Weiss, “Kristol sniggered.”
It’s a “myth,” said Kristol, that Arabs care about Palestinians. The Israeli occupation on the West Bank can last for 45 or 60 years more. Bill Kristol on Palestinian rights sounds like Bull Connor talking about Negro rights in Birmingham in 1965.
Another source says Kristol predicted that Sen. Joe Lieberman, whose voting record is closer to Socialist Bernie Sanders’ than to conservative Jim DeMint’s, will be secretary of state in the Romney administration.
A former head of the Israel lobby AIPAC describes Lieberman as “the No. 1 pro-Israel advocate and leader in the Congress.”
Joe led the cheers for our last three Middle East wars — and has pushed for two more, against Syria and Iran.
About Kristol’s comments, a point of personal privilege.
George W. Bush never “encouraged” me to go third party. At the Iowa straw poll in 1999, he asked me to stay in the party, and party chair Jim Nicholson came to my home to make the same request.
At the synagogue, Kristol was never asked about his role in the Iraq War that he and his collaborators pressured Bush to wage as “Israel’s fight against terrorism is our fight.”
Some 4,500 Americans died in that war, 35,000 were wounded, and 100,000 Iraqis perished, leaving half a million widows and orphans.
Result: U.S. influence in the Middle East is at a nadir. Al-Qaeda has spread into Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, and North Africa.
Now the neocons are worming their way into the Romney camp, dropping us hints on whether John Bolton or Joe Lieberman will be the next secretary of state.
Has Gov. Romney imbibed the Kristol Kool-Aid that caused the war and cost the party Congress in 2006 and the presidency in 2008?
Hard to believe, but we should find out before November.
“the George H.W. Bush-James Baker-Brent Scowcroft realists”
The WASPS, at least, put America first.
MRW says:
May 29, 2012 at 2:08 pm
“the George H.W. Bush-James Baker-Brent Scowcroft realists”
The WASPS, at least, put America first”"
Yea they did…if we’re gonna have a elite group cliche running the country better to have one that is at least America-first.
>> Hey Phil check this out over at Antiwar.com. Mondoweiss mentioned
The article’s also up at LewRockwell.com.
MW has been quoted quit a bit for a while now ..I see more and more of it among the VSP…very serious people.
Pipes and Rosen (and Kristol) can pat themselves on the back all they want, but once Sen. Kirk brought up the amendment you can be sure no significant number of Congressmen was going to vote against it. AIPAC and CoP and the other pro-Israel ATM machines deserve the true credit. The Pipes and Kristol and now Rosen are hired PR hands. Money has never had more power in the Halls of Congress than today.
RE “Daniel Pipes says he and Steve Rosen drove Senate re ‘so-called’ Palestinian refugees” ~ Weiss
MY SNARK: G_d bless Daniel Pipes for trying to keep “Jane Austen’s England” alive and well.
Now all you women get back in the kitchen where you belong!
SEE: “In Jerusalem, Pipes suggests Muslim polygamy has ended ‘Jane Austen’ England”, by Philip Weiss, Mondoweiss, 9/17/10
LINK – link to mondoweiss.net
RE: “The amendment, proposed by Mark Kirk (Republican of
Illinois)…” – Daniel Pipes
CORRECTION: The amendment, (secretly) proposed by AIPAC and fronted by Mark Kirk (Republican of Illinois). . .
RE: “Daniel Pipes says he and Steve Rosen drove Senate re ‘so-called’ Palestinian refugees” ~ Weiss
MY COMMENT: More hooey from the bonkers Pipes family!
FROM WIKIPEDIA [Team B]:
SOURCE – link to en.wikipedia.org
P.S. “Sticks and stones may break our bones, but facts will never sway us.” ~ Neocon Creed (This creed also works for Team B, Republicans, Fox News, Fundies, etc.)
I knew Richard Pipes when I was a graduate student at Harvard. The guy hates Russia. Not just the Soviet Union. Russia.
He has the contempt for Russia that so many Poles have. Unusually for a Polish Jew, Pipes really identifies with Poland.
U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk’s ex-wife files FEC complaint about campaign payments to his girlfriend:
No wonder this guy is AIPAC’s favorite in the Senate.
OMG he gave his ex-wife only 40K while giving his active mistress 143 K — now that is big time trouble.
sweet..a current 6 page smear job on kirk. this is right up my alley. skewer him.
>>Last week we did a couple of reports on the Senate’s unanimous passage
>>of a rightwing Republican’s amendment
Yo, Phil – it was just the Senate Appropriations Committee, not the whole Senate. Last week Alison said it was “the U.S. government.” How come you guys are having such a hard time getting this right? At least Alex got it right (and Pipes).
Maybe it will go all the way through, but I’m betting it won’t, or that the Senate will add some clause that allows Obama to ignore it. I seriously doubt the U.S. government, or even AIPAC, is actually ready to cut off aid to UNRWA. If they do, they’ll have a major problem on their hands. I think this whole amendment is just one of the lobby’s little games to put Congress through its paces.
US foreign policy is not driven by a special interest group. No, no, no, no, no, no..
As is often the case with zionists, the worst of their accusations reflect a guilty conscience. I mean, this is a man who has made a career of stoking anti-semitism (against semites, not jews) and islamophobia in the service of an ethno/religious supremacist nation such as Israel.
The dark heart is none other than his own.
Speaking of the lobby driving policy, I dare say they were behind the decision that had Obama yesterday award the Medal of Freedom to, among others, Shimon Peres and Jan Karski, the Pole who revealed the existence of the Holocaust in the West during World War Two.
I wonder who on the White House staff (or maybe it was the lobby?) was responsible for inserting the words “Polish death camps” in Obama’s remarks about the award to Karski that have caused such a flap. Poles angered by Obama words on ‘Polish death camps,’ prime minister wants ‘stronger’ reaction:
The Zionists, after all, have such a thing about trying to extend the blame for the Holocaust to the Poles. This attitude is prominently on display in the movie Shoah, which we now learn was inspired and financed by the State of Israel.
misspoke? how could he misspeak using a term no one ever uses? are we being introduced to new phraseology via the president?
gruesome. someone put that there and someone, the president, should apologize and retract.
I listened to some of Obama’s remarks at the ceremony on the PBS News Hour last night (although they didn’t play the part about Karski). It was obvious that the remarks were carefully scripted, not impromptu at all.
By the way, an excellent book on Nazi treatment of Poland is Martin Broszat’s Nationalsozialstische Polenpolitik 1939-1945 (untranslated, as far as I know). A more general and more recent (and English-language) book on Nazi treatment of all the occupied countries is Mark Mazower’s Hitler’s Empire.
thanks lysias, your references are always awesome.
I haven’t read the books Lysias mentions, so I can’t compare, but I learned a lot from Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation, 1939-1944, by Richard Lukas.
He should also retract the awards to Peres and the crypto-Kahanist, Bob Dylan, unless they want change it to the Presidential Medal of Freedom Except For The Palestinians.
“The Zionists, after all, have such a thing about trying to extend the blame for the Holocaust to the Poles. This attitude is prominently on display in the movie Shoah, which we now learn was inspired and financed by the State of Israel.”
Exactly. This is one of the more disgusting aspects of the zionists and their shitty state, especially considering what the Nazis did to Poland and the Poles and what they had planned for the Poles in the future. Absolutely despicable and inhuman.
yeah I’ve found with Israelis on the internet to be a rather common atitude. there was someone here con’t remember the name whose attitude was well the poles weren’t willing to risk the survival of the polish people for the jews so they didn’t do enough and were hand in hand with the nazis to kill the jews.
Dont’ you know Woody that the WHOLE world is responsible for the holocaust…yep, the whole world…..the 75 million non Jews who were killed in WWII fighting Hitler didn’t do jack s*** for the Jews.
And they didn’t do jack s**** for the Jews on purpose, yes, on purpose , because the whole world hated Jews and didn’t care.
Yea, that’s the zio story. We’re all monsters.
Good damn thing we have a lot of nukes or the Israeli zios might come after us after they finish off the Palestines who also caused the holocaust and Iran who is about to cause another holocaust. Maybe they won’t try to blow the US up until after they get us to attack Russia for all their Jewish persecution and then there’s Spain and their Jewish persecution, they have to be dealt with too, then of course there are those Germany, France and Britain anti semite nations that have to be punished, ah so much revenge, ..we have a lot of atonement work and justice to smite the world with before they let us go to our own just deserts..
” award the Medal of Freedom to, among others, Shimon Peres ”
This is so sickening….
Here are Obama’s words yesterday about Peres:
And here are the words about Karski:
The asterisks are explained by this note at the beginning of the text:
“Tusk said it was a “matter of the U.S.’s reputation.”
Well, our reputation has already gone down the toilet. I doubt some mumbling apology is going to make much difference.
The US is what it is now.